FORRESTON - No. 2-seeded Aquin looked a bit out of sync for most of its regional quarterfinal game Tuesday with (No. 7) Hiawatha.

But the Bulldogs (23-5) will be able to shrug off the subpar performance and move on after beating the Hawks 73-52 to advance to tonight's Forreston Regional semifinals against Polo. The Marcos beat Pearl City 61-43 in the other quarterfinal.

"We'll definitely be ready tomorrow," Aquin senior Andrew Martin said. "We just need to put this one behind us and know we'll have a better game."

Despite not being sharp, the Bulldogs still built an early double-digit lead on Hiawatha with a 23-11 first quarter. The Hawks would never get closer than nine points the rest of the way - they trailed 35-26 early in the third quarter -- but their sharp second-half shooting from beyond the arc kept them from being buried until the fourth. They hit 6 of 11 3-point attempts in the second half to hang around before Aquin put the game well out of reach in the final quarter.

"It's nice to get the first one out of the way no question about it and I told the guys, a win's a win so we're happy with that," Aquin coach Rich Chang said. "Good teams find a way to win when they're not at their best but if we play like this the rest of the way we're going to be going home early."

The Bulldogs got a boost offensively from Krisean Coffee, who scored a game-high 21 points and pulled down eight rebounds to lead Aquin.

"He's a really big matchup problem because he can handle the ball but he's also big," Martin said.

"He got to the basket and finished," coach Chang said. "A couple of our other guys were getting to the basket and they weren't even trying to finish."

Martin scored eight of his 13 points in the first quarter, and he also corralled eight boards on the night. Aiden Chang rebounded from a quiet first half to finish with a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds. The junior scored 12 of his 14 after halftime in helping the Bulldogs pull away.

Polo 61, Pearl City 43

Pearl City (8-20) certainly didn't make it easy on the third-seeded Marcos (23-6) in their quarterfinal matchup. The Wolves hung tough for three quarters before the Marcos' size and talent simply became too much for them to overcome.

Polo led by seven after three quarters but pulled away in the fourth to move on to a semifinal showdown with Aquin. Marcos coach Matt Messer knew his team wouldn't be able to coast past the hard-fighting Wolves.

"They're scrappy, they fight and we knew we were in for a dogfight playing them and they didn't disappoint," Messer said. "They did a nice job. We were fortunate to get that win."

Page 2 of 2 - Senior Brian Cavanaugh scored a game-high 22 points for the Marcos, 10 of which came in the fourth quarter when Polo pulled away. AJ Dollmeyer had a double-double of 17 points and 13 rebounds along with a pair of blocks to power the Marcos' strong interior presence, which the Wolves simply couldn't match.